Extended Footage: Being a Jew was Criminal

In this outtake from The Story of the Jews, Simon Schama speaks with Levana Zamir, President of the International Association of Jews from Egypt, about her family’s traumatic expulsion from Egypt.

“I was asleep, of course, and all of a sudden I heard all these noises and they cut mattresses, ten policemen in the house. I didn’t know what they wanted and they left, they found nothing they left. They did the same to my uncle upstairs, but they took him to prison. I didn’t know.

The next day I went to school and the nun, the teacher there, told me, “They took your uncle to prison.” For me, it was a trauma, a shock, because prison for a child ten years old is a criminal. My uncle was a criminal? I ran home, I cried, I asked my mother if that’s true, is he a criminal? she explained to me — she wanted to calm me — and she explained to me that he went to prison because we are Jews.

So all of a sudden, for me being a Jew — I knew I am a Jew — being a Jew is criminal, it’s a crime. It was, I think, the real trauma for me.”

The Story of the Jews with Simon Schama is made possible by lead funding from The Paul & Irma Milstein Family. Major funding is generously provided by The Polonsky Foundation. Additional major support is provided by The Pershing Square Foundation, the Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust, James and Merryl Tisch, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the David Berg Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Rose, and the Lemberg Foundation. Support is also provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS.